When 24-year-old Shreveport native James Davenport talked his way into photographing a Jimi Hendrix concert at Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium in July of 1968, he had no way of knowing he was photographing history. The then 24-year-old simply wanted to get photos of Hendrix’s performance for a newspaper article.

This week, Davenport returned to Shreveport to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that night and the unexpected success of the photos he captured.

“When I found out that Hendrix was going to be here, I came over the afternoon of the show and talked to a security guy,” Davenport said. “I told him I’d just gotten out of the Army and I was an ex-paratrooper and so was Hendrix. And I had done work in the military for Army Times and Stars and Stripes.”

Before achieving stardom, Jimi Hendrix served in the Army and was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division.

“I still had what they called a stringer card – a photographer’s I.D. card – and I was going to write an article and submit it to Army Times about Hendrix’s rise to fame,” Davenport said.

The security guard told Davenport to return an hour before the show. He came back and was ushered to an area inside the security barricade mere feet from the stage.

“I stayed there the whole show,” Davenport said. “Every time he switched guitars, every time he tuned up, every time he smoked a cigarette we had a running conversation.”

Davenport had recently begun experimenting with Kodachrome and shot two rolls of color film during the concert.

“Out of the two rolls I shot, one of them came out super and one not so good.”

James Davenport (far right) displays his Jimi Hendrix photos to visitors at the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium. Davenport visited Shreveport to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's concert in July 1968.(Photo: Courtesy of Winston Hall)

After submitting his article (which was never published), Davenport stored the photos away. Later, Davenport unearthed them from a box in his house.

“I found these things in the back of a garage in a box covered in dirt. I had literally forgotten about them.”

In 2009, on a whim, Davenport put copies of the unpublished concert photos for sale on eBay. He soon received an unexpected phone call from a music producer in Miami who introduced him to an attorney in Boston.

Davenport eventually connected with Experience Hendrix – the official family company that formally manages the Jimi Hendrix legacy. Experience Hendrix negotiated the purchase of reproduction rights to Davenport’s color photos.

The intense interest in the photos, according to Davenport, is because of the blue custom-made Fender guitar Hendrix is playing in many of the photos. The Biscayne blue color, Davenport said, was specifically made to match a Chevrolet Chevelle that belonged to Hendrix.

The blue Fender guitar and a black Les Paul guitar also used in the Shreveport show were both stolen a few days later when Hendrix appeared in New Orleans.

“He had the [Fender] guitar a total of three or four days before it was stolen.”

Hendrix’s bad luck was Davenport’s good fortune. His photos of Hendrix’s performance at the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium are the only known color photos of Hendrix playing the blue Fender guitar.

The photos have since taken on a life of their own. In 2010, Davenport’s photo was used on the back cover of Valleys of Neptune, a posthumously released Jimi Hendrix compilation album. A photo was also used on the outside of an Experience Hendrix Tour bus for their 2017 tribute tour.

And most recently, music accessory company Dunlop released an Authentic Hendrix Strap called the Shreveport. The strap is an almost identical replica of the guitar strap that Hendrix used during most of the show at the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium. Dunlop used Davenport’s photos as basis for most of their research when designing the strap. His photo was even used on the guitar strap’s tag.

For Davenport, who has spent a lifetime photographing concerts, the Hendrix photos stand alone as a unique and crowning contribution to music history.

“It was all these years before I realized, after I looked at thousands of Hendrix shots, how good my stuff was. And I didn’t shoot it for anything other than my little story.”